Talk:Reaganomics

cause of inflation drop
There are some who insist that Reagan engineered a miracle economy, including by crushing persistent inflation, so saying the Fed's actions were "in part" to credit fuels that narrative.The source added by makes clear that during the Reagan presidency it was Volcker's policies that crushed inflation.

soibangla (talk) 18:42, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If the text said that it was partly due to the Fed and partly due to Reagan, then I'd agree with you. But it says partly due to the Fed, and doesn't state what the other causes were (such as external factors). I'd be very wary of saying it was solely due to the Fed without a source explicitly stating so. Bellowhead678 (talk) 19:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Where does it say partly due to the Fed? soibangla (talk) 19:45, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The Fed was responsible for bringing down inflation. Reagan was running big deficits trying to stimulate the economy, which is inflationary other things equal. If there are quotes about him trying to talk down inflation, one might write that he was aligned that way with what the Fed was doing, but inflation is a monetary phenomenon (the Fed).Farcaster (talk) 23:01, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

This is a complex topic but most sources give the FED credit here. Reagan's role (for the most part) is standing behind Volcker even as the situation became worse and worse from the FED's actions (in 1982). Volcker himself has noted this. That (if anything) is probably what should be noted.Rja13ww33 (talk) 01:44, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Analysis section is woefully lacking in criticism. In particular, criticism relating to income inequality.
There is the section “Income distribution“ which lays out some bare stats. But there isn’t anything in the analysis section breaking down the practical impact.. And Ronnie Regs did get plenty of criticism for income inequality. Also, the analysis section seems to be lacking any criticism on the harsher side. And it seems pretty packed with analysis that paints Ronnie Reaganomics in a positive light. Some of which seems to say the same thing to a degree. I figured I’d ask here before editing as I’d imagine this discussion has happened before.DonkeyPunchResin (talk) 11:14, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "Lacking in criticism"? It's almost all criticism. Of the 11 economists quoted.....only 2 have anything positive to say about this policy. In fact, outside of the first few paragraphs, it is pure criticism. If anything, I'd say it was unbalanced in the other direction.Rja13ww33 (talk) 15:08, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I’d dispute the accuracy of your assessment. But my main point is that the economists and other commentators are talking about abstract things like supply side economics effect on tax revenue, pages in the federal register vs regulatory rules, the use of “shall” “prohibited” or “may not”, etc. A major focus of criticism of Regeanomics, if not the main focus, is on the tangible effect it had on income equality. The analysis section is void of this criticism.DonkeyPunchResin (talk) 13:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It may be worth a statement on that point. (Probably with a link to that page here.) But income inequality is a fairly deep topic....and taxes only address the topic after the fact. If you want to talk about wealth inequality (or after tax income)....that is a bit more relevant. The fact is, before tax income for the highest wage earners has risen over the last 50 years regardless of what the tax policy is.Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:15, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I might grab something out of Krugman's book and drop it in next week. He spends some time with this in 'The Conscience of a Liberal'.Rja13ww33 (talk) 17:29, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I added Krugman's thoughts on this. Any comments.....let me know.Rja13ww33 (talk) 21:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That’s what I was looking for.DonkeyPunchResin (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

The word "liberal" in "neoliberal"...
...I think causes issues with some people, so I'm just going to help a little bit here - neoliberal ---Apeholder (talk) 05:04, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation necessary?
I'm a Lemon Demon fan too, but his song doesn't have an individual article, and I don't think a reasonable person would expect it to (it's on a Bandcamp album, admittedly a very popular one, and other, more popular tracks¹ from Spirit Phone don't have articles either). Does it need to stay?

¹Spirit Phone's article lists Touch-Tone Telephone from the same album as Lemon Demon's most played song on Spotify, and that song and Eighth Wonder as being mentioned in citable sources but not the others 96.19.2.200 (talk) 20:50, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Voodoo economics redirect
I'm skeptical that this is the best target for this redirect, as there's very little on the term (or even any definition of it as a concept) here. If it does continue to point here, surely there should be a hatnote, a bold alt-title, or both. A more logical target seems to be trickle-down economics, but that article is... rather problematic itself at present (and in current process). Suggestions welcome. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 04:50, 28 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should be a link to anything. So Bush and Perot called Reagan's policies "voodoo"? Big deal. A lot of things have been called voodoo, because that has become a common critique. When something is labeled voodoo, they are calling it a non-sequitur. From Merriam-webster: "voodoo: based on highly improbable suppositions : extremely implausible or unrealistic". Even lists "voodoo economics" as a common example. We had this same discussion on the trickle down talk page. "Trickle down" is apparently just a label critics give tax policies that include tax cuts on the wealthy classes (and sometimes on just any tax cut, or even not on tax cuts at all). There's a sound argument to be made that the trickle down article should just be deleted, since wikipedia is not a dictionary. How must more true is this for "voodoo economics"? But here's a big bold redirect that Reaganomics is synonymous with voodoo economics. This redirect should be deleted. It has no reason to exist. Heavy Chaos (talk) 19:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, per Wikipedia policy and consensus it should link to something, but if you want to try your luck deleting it you can do so at WP:RFD. There are many links to terms or statements that are labels that link to other things, that is normal. Andre🚐 21:56, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * FWIW this redirect has been around since 2003 it was created by fellow former bureaucrat/admin Kingturtle whose name I do recognize. Andre🚐 21:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. I had already found and bookmarked when to and how to delete redirects.
 * "per Wikipedia policy and consensus it should link to something". It's not at all clear which policy you are referring to, and however you might reply, quoting some, remember that stuff is deleted all the time, including entire pages that can't justify their existence.
 * See the "Voodoo economics" edit history. It was a stub first created in May 2003, with a small blurb crediting Bush Sr. with coining the term (unsourced, but maybe it's true). I'd favor such an article over a redirect, or, this one with the stub warning at the bottom, then maybe someone might add something useful. In Jan 2004 it was made to redirect to Supply-side economics, where it pointed until 2008 (even worse that now, but maybe reaganomics didn't exist). It looks like someone tried to make an RFD in Nov 2008, but maybe didn't actually finish all the steps. The next day it was changed to redirect to Reaganomics, which is the current redirect. The edit history after that is dead, except someone changed it to redirect to Keynesian economics (which makes no sense), so it was rightly reverted the next day.
 * So, yes, it's been pointing to Reaganomics for a long time, which might qualify it as "harmful to delete" since it might break old links that don't show in the "what links here page". But there are a number of reasons to delete it, that do fall in line with the reasons listed in the help page. It is quite a misnomer. As I said in another place, I was astonished to see it redirect anywhere. It confused me as a reader. In fact, I only clicked because I didn't understand where it could possibly link. Maybe the astonishment is because someone intentionally linked the text "voodoo economics" to the reaganomics article (probably a different issue, and easier to change). There wouldn't be articles on "garbage x", "shit x", etc. These are turns of phrase, not things. "Voodoo x" is a slur. A common one too. Just because a lot of us remember Bush Sr. saying it doesn't justify a redirect for it. It was, after all, a smear campaign.
 * On pragmatism: I'm not sure how to interpret the page stats, but I can't seem to find the referrers, ie, are those hits just from wikipedia article inline links, or are they legitimately from the search bar and other places? There's about 4x the number of hits for Oct. 2022, which is when the Trickle down article had a lot of discussion, some of it specifically about how "voodoo" links to reaganomics, so it seems safe to say that false hits are included in those stats. With that in mind, it's suspect that any of the handful of hits it has had are legitimate, meaning, it actually helped someone find what they were looking for. I don't see a pragmatic case being made. It doesn't actually help anyone.
 * But if we can argue that Bush Sr. saying it was important enough in those years that it should be preserved on Wikipedia, and we can source it, then it should just be an article about that. Or, if there's some other primary topic, it should be about that. But, in the way we're working on trickle-down economics, maybe the page should be about "voodoo economics" as a term. I'm not convinced that's a good idea, since such use would largely be in strong opinion pieces. Again, not a dictionary.
 * So, the only reason justifying it stay is because it's been around for a while (not a very good reason, since that's based almost exclusively on a fear of making broken links). At the same time, there's a number of reasons to delete it, including making a short article instead. Heavy Chaos (talk) 00:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, just discovered there's two pages with redirect history and stuff. The difference seems to be e vs E in the word economics. Voodoo economics and Voodoo Economics. Heavy Chaos (talk) 00:06, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirects are justified primarily by how common they are, and there are redirects for misspellings, slurs, and all kinds of stuff less worthy than the phrase "voodoo economics." Deleting it would serve no purpose other than making this article harder to find for someone trying to look up information about the phrase that some have used to describe supply-side/trickle-down/Reaganomics, which I do think are all kind of facets of similar or related things. So there's an argument to retarget this, if you have the history of the article it was retargeted several times - the 2003 link I offered it was a redirect to supply-side. I think your citing of not a dictionary doesn't apply here. A dictdef would be an entry that just describes a word, without context or encyclopedic content. As to whether it should get its own article, maybe it should, but it shouldn't be deleted. You also said the trickle-down article should be deleted, which is strange because you've been spending a lot of time trying to improve that article. But the bottom line is that your arguments are missing the mark in terms of applying a reason for deleting a redirect. Andre🚐 00:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm glad we seem to be close to agreeing that it should change from what it currently is. BTW, I've not said the trickle down article should be deleted, but I may have rhetorically suggested it, as an argumentative device. I don't remember. Either way, I don't advocate deleting trickle-down economics at this time. On the contrary, I think we've been doing good work there on what looks like a long neglected article. Heavy Chaos (talk) 00:16, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, well, if you want to turn "voodoo economics" into its own article, I wouldn't oppose that. Or if you think it should redirect elsewhere, I'm open to hearing where you think it should go. The only thing I'm really opposing is deleting the redirect - see WP:RNEUTRAL for more reasoning as to why this wouldn't be appropriate. Andre🚐 00:17, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

"See also" vs "Not to be confused" hat for trickle down economics
Comparing this hat

to this hat

I made an edit to add trickle down to the distinguish hat (the second one), but it was reverted. I chose "not to be confused" specifically because for a long time I actually believed they were the same thing, and that Reagan called his plan "trickle down". Turns out that's pretty far from the truth. The revert message suggested to make it a see also. At first, I thought ok, then was going to make the edit.

But after seeing trickle down in the see also, I really don't like propagating the false impression that I used to have. This makes me uncomfortable because the only reason I ever had that false impression was because of very successful POV messaging. Opponents called Reagan's policy trickle down. In fact, virtually all uses one can find of "trickle down economics" are critical shorthands. Many just outright dismissals. There aren't very many honest uses. Heavy Chaos (talk) 06:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but Reagan didn't call his policy package Reaganomics either. Obama, did end up calling his healthcare plan Obamacare, but only after it was labelled that by his opponents. We don't name articles or links based on what the originator of that policy called it, we call them by their WP:COMMONNAME. A lot of people, including textbooks and academics, refer to things known as Reaganomics or trickle-down economics - we have 2 separate articles with some linkage to represent that these are somewhat overlapping but not identical topics. But I don't agree with "not to be confused with" because it implies these are two altogether separate things. Yes, Reagan's critics called his policies trickle-down, but so do neutral academics and neutral news or other references such as books. More to the point, it's a common naming, but conceptually-wise, there's considerable overlap - so not to be confused, more like, see also, in my view. Andre🚐 07:37, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * In terms of what the articles are right now, they are altogether separate things. Reagonomics is a particular economic plan. Trickle down is a critical term, widely applied, which happens to have been popularized while being applied toward Reagan. "but so do neutral academics and neutral news or other references such as books [call it trickle down]". That's a misleading statement. If they are explaining the term trickle down, sure, that's neutral, but those are 1 per 100 for the critical uses that clearly aren't neutral. Further, academic use is virtually nill. You've been all up and down the trickle down article for months. You know this, but keep claiming the opposite. The trickle down talk page has already hashed this 10 or so times, 2 or 3 with you in there. Heavy Chaos (talk) 07:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong, but they aren't synonyms. And we have links on the trickle down page clearly supporting that they are completely different topics and commonly confused, so wp:commonname supports my argument, not yours. Heavy Chaos (talk) 07:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean that I know something but I am claiming the opposite. As I've stated on the trickle-down page trickle-down is used by neutral textbooks and neutral academic sources. It's true that the most influential and significant usage is the critical usage. Regardless, it's not at all clear that Reaganomics and trickle-down economics have a completely independent venn diagram. Others can weigh in, but I am not sold and I believe that Reaganomics has a significant component that is identical to what is called trickle-down economics, and voodoo economics probably almost exclusively refers to that part of Reaganomics. As far as past discussions on the trickle-down page, as far as I know you didn't participate in those. So you'll have to make those arguments anew and others or myself can respond to them anew. You can't just handwave and say it was settled there, as it wasn't, there was no consensus against trickle-down being in part a description of a certain economic theory discussed neutrally in academic sources (though predominantly critically). Nor is that strictly relevant to this article. Andre🚐 07:56, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * "It's true that the most influential and significant usage is the critical usage." Then you have to concede, per wp:COMMONNAME. They can and largely do confuse them. "it's not at all clear that Reaganomics and trickle-down economics have a completely independent venn diagram". Completely independent is not the goalpost we're shooting for, is it? It's about confusion for the majority of readership, which you conceded. "So you'll have to make those arguments anew and others or myself can respond to them anew." No, consensus doesn't mean that. Tally them up. There's a significant majority of users that are on my side of the fence here, but you refuse to accept it. Even when it was tallied for you in Oct 22. You reached for straws to keep debating. Consensus doesn't mean "if I outlast you I win". Heavy Chaos (talk) 08:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of the time trickle-down is used critically, while Reaganomics is certainly used more positively. That does not mean fundamentally they are really different, though, do you have a source for that? Because the current articles say they have a lot of overlap. So it's not that they are confused, they may be conflated, because they have a lot of shared topic area. But I don't think we should use that hatnote because it implies they are disparate. As far as the consensus in October 22, consensus is not a vote. You do not tally them up. If the arguments are roughly of equal size and weight and strength, that is a WP:NOCON result. We can start a new RFC on the topic if that is in doubt, but there is no consensus for the change you're proposing: you'll need to discuss and obtain one. A third and a fourth opinion could make it clear that I am in the minority with my argument, but that is not a given. You have to do the work of collaboration not just claim it was done already. Andre🚐 08:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

No mention of the stiffling of actual scientific innovation.
There is research that because of the Neoliberal policies enacted by Raegan and later Bush and Clinton, there is a noticable stiffling of Scientific innovation. I see no mention of it here. Should perhaps be added?

Note: I understand "Jacobin" is left leaning. I also note that they are consistently rated as "High" or at least less problematic than many other media sources when looking at fact check sites such as: - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/jacobin/ - https://adfontesmedia.com/jacobin-bias-and-reliability/

Sources: - https://jacobin.com/2023/05/science-neoliberal-model-innovation-publications-quantifying-wage-labor/ - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05543-x - http://www.countdownnet.net/Allegati/31%20Neoliberalism%20and%20technology_Perpetual%20innovation%20or%20perpetual%20crisis.pdf 94.110.113.219 (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2023 (UTC)


 * On our RS list, Jacobian is also listed as a biased source. Also, these sources don't specifically mention Reaganomics. At least one of the sources says the blame lies with "...academia’s increasingly competitive, metrics-driven model, which discourages creativity and risk-taking." And finally, the era of the computer/.com revolution was without innovation? Per EXTRAORDINARY, we are probably going to need a number of high quality sources to back that up. Rja13ww33 (talk) 01:55, 21 December 2023 (UTC)